Day Seven -- Wednesday

Hidden Talents
Natalie and I discovered a new talent today: the art of street-throwing. In the show, there is a scene where Hyrum Smith calls out the names of streets in Nauvoo to be laid, and youth come out with large, colorful fabric strips that they throw in the air (from center stage) and then run to the edges of the stage to create a map of the streets of Nauvoo on stage. Natalie and I are Granger Street. We received little given instruction, we just used my past experience and our judgment to know how to throw our street up and stretch it across the stage. We never really paid attention to the other street layers either. But today during our meeting where the directors gave us notes on last night's run-through, the director made the following statement about that scene: "Can I just say, Granger street is amazing!" One of the other directors later spoke to us individually and told us the same thing. Pretty much, Natalie and I were glowing. We now regard ourselves as master street-throwers. It was great to hear that compliment, despite how small the task. You never know when you'll uncover a hidden talent.

My Alter Ego: Jenna
Natalie and I met this kid that's on the work crew. Despite being a trombone player, he's really nice. He introduced himself and told us his name was Kevin. He asked for ours, we gave him our names, and then he apologized in advance because of his short-term memory with names. Later, Natalie came up with the idea to tell him the wrong name if he asked again what our names were. The next day (today), we saw him at our rehearsal, and he proudly greeted us: "Hi Hannah and Natalie!" -- triumphant in having remembered our names. Natalie and I looked at him with confused faces; "What did you say?," we asked. "I just said 'hi Hannah and Natalie'," he replied. "Oh, you mean Jenna!" Natalie said with a straight face. He felt bad that he had "forgotten" my name and apologized, but I reassured him that he was very close with "Hannah."

Soon, Natalie and I felt very guilty about this friendly trick we had played. At the next opportunity, we approached him, apologized, and explained that we had done it to play off of his comment about forgetting people's names. He was a very good sport about it and now cracks jokes about my name whenever we see him.